There once was a time when I prepared the children's sermon in the wee hours of Saturday night. But no longer. The more I analyzed it, the more I realized how terribly difficult it is to proclaim the gospel to children.
My own turning point was the moment I began to examine what I was doing and how I was doing it. I stopped taking for granted what I read in books of children's sermons and said to myself, There must be more to this than meets the eye. The author may have given me fifty-two sermons and a few good ideas, but nowhere did the author set forth criteria for why these were good children's sermons.
Before preaching to children, I decided to ask myself, What appropriate message and form should I use this time?
Gospel Telling and Worship
Two misconceptions cloud our thinking about children's sermons. The low view considers them a liturgical albatross. Many fine preachers have had the experience, I suspect, of seeing too much show and not much substance. They fully realize the many limitations imposed by time and setting.
The high view presumes children's sermons can do it all, reasoning something like this: As long as children are hearing some kind of proclamation in worship, they are being properly fed. If it is possible, this view takes the children's sermon too seriously.
If we buy into the low view, we would do away with the children's sermon altogether: Let them worship in children's church. Period. If we follow the high view, there would be a children's sermon every Sunday, which would constitute the only input geared for them. What we are often missing is a sensible balance-a little fun with the highest standards.
I advocate a middle view. The sermon never constitutes the whole worship experience for any age. Children need to be part of congregational worship and a worship experience that is age-appropriate. At our church, on half the Sundays children and younger youth worship with their families for the first twenty minutes before being dismissed to classes. On alternating Sundays they spend that twenty minutes worshiping together in the chapel, often led by children themselves with the help of an adult.
Listening to Myself
I found that analyzing my children's sermons as I did my adult sermons forced me to make some immediate changes. Listening in on my own worst efforts and on the unexamined offerings of others, I began to find some common failings:
Rambling. With children, time is of the essence. We must get to the point-our one point. So often it sounds like the proclaimer is having difficulty getting to the point, and when he finds it, has difficulty leaving it. I define a good children's sermon as one that is to the point, biblical, and participatory. Consequently, not-so-good children's sermons are rambling, moralistic, and object-centered.
Moralism. Christianity is certainly not without its standards and expectations, so there is a time and place to be moralistic with children. But too often, we forget that God's love must first find and transform us. Moralistic sermons either reverse this priority or neglect it.
More than any other age group, children seem to be on the receiving end of moralistic sermons, which come across sounding like "Good Christian children should be kinder, more respectful, more honest, more considerate, less wasteful, less quarrelsome, and not so mean and selfish." We cannot confuse this with the proclamation of the divine Good News. When I begin sounding like a sage adviser or character builder, the proclamation of God's love is probably losing out.
Children's sermons should enable children to experience, at that very moment in the worship service, the goodness of God and the caring of God's people. Children need to feel this more than they need to be advised about their behavior. We do not become what God wants us to be until we know God loves and accepts us.
Humanism. Humanism comes in many forms: cute stories, anecdotes, fables, fairy tales. Humanism tends to confuse the gospel with the wisdom of the ages or parental advice, something we all find easy to do. No matter how it is dressed, worldly wisdom will always be advice about how to get along in the world ( … la Dale Carnegie), while God's foolishness disrupts, reverses, and transforms (1 Cor. 1-2).
For a while, each Sunday the children in our church were edging closer and closer to the exit to see who could get out first. The children's sermon one day was about "the first and the last." When the children were dismissed out the other, seldom-used door, the first literally became the last. We have the obligation to upset their world as well as calm their fears.
Teaching. Although every good sermon ought to contain at least a little sound teaching, our children's sermons frequently slide into more than just a little. I know I am pulled in the direction of teaching instead of proclaiming. But isn't this what our church schools are for?
Truthfully, I have preached my share of sermons explicating the symbolic meaning of the sanctuary-the pulpit, lectern, Communion table, and various other Christian symbols. It was pure teaching. In order to break free from this dependency, I now push on to help children experience the gospel.
One Sunday I was explaining the reason for including flowers on the Communion table. Holding one of the flowers in my hand, I asked an older child to tear it into pieces. I then asked the child to put it back together "just as it was."
After reminding him of some great human achievements like building the space shuttle or inventing artificial kidneys, I asked if there was anyone in the whole world who could help him accomplish the task. You can see my method: I wanted the children to be struck with the realization that God is God, because we can't even reconstruct a simple flower.
It is easier to teach because we have so much to teach them, and proclaiming is so much more difficult. Although it isn't always possible, my goal is to preserve the unique nature of proclamation in worship. So when I do opt to teach, I do it guardedly, not letting it become a substitute for proclamation. Certainly I want to fill their heads with sound teaching, but not before I seek to transform their hearts so that teaching isn't lost.
Object lessons and allegory. These two are buddies who usually team up with disastrous results. Why? Because children don't think allegorically until they are long past grade school and entering high school. I had to re-examine my fixation on "the object in the brown bag."
In an outdoor setting, I once watched a minister bring out an ax and proceed to draw an analogy about personal conduct from each part: "As the blade must be kept sharp, so must we keep ourselves sharpened against the dull edge of immorality. . . ." How many children made the jump from steel to sex?
But I once made a similar mistake: I used a gun in a children's sermon. The reaction was tumultuous. I was chided by the hunters in the congregation who felt I didn't understand their point of view, and I was attacked by parents for setting a bad example. Nobody remembered my point!
I will use an object to get a discussion started but not to draw an analogy. On Rally Day when our church school opened this year, my objects included a miniature church without a steeple, half a banana, one ice skate, and a family picture with one member cut out. The objects helped the children get in touch with feelings of incompleteness and being missed. They caught the message: "Our church family is only complete when you are with us."
In Search of Better Ways
Methods abound to blunt the effect of a children's sermon, and most of us have witnessed or tried our share of them. However, I have found ways to improve my proclamation to children.
Variety. No one type of presentation stands head and shoulders above the others. I strive to be creative and unafraid to try something different, because a rut is a sure way toward mediocrity.
Here are some of the styles I have utilized:
let's pretend
pantomime
puppets
echo stories (the leader provides a line or two and the children echo back words, motions, or sounds)
story form (includes a plot and character development)
dramatic participation (children become participants)
a life experience (recounting a story where you have experienced God's grace in your daily life)
visual demonstration (otherwise known as object lessons)
As a rule, my preparation begins with the message-a scriptural message, of course-and then I determine the form of presentation. For example, when I was demonstrating the meaning of the commandments "You shall not steal" and "You shall not covet," I chose a pantomime.
I acted out the way an object, a new baseball bat in this instance, can hold sway over us once we decide "I must have it." In the planning stage I had only two acts: one where I physically took the bat off a table, and a second scene where I took it only with my eyes and desire. To end the sermon here, however, would leave it merely teaching about these two commandments. I added a third scene that suggested the way to break this hold is through prayer.
Another great method, puppets, allows children to overhear a conversation. The concept of "listening in" is important, because we all need a safe distance to listen before we can say, That's me, too. According to Fred Craddock in his book, Overhearing the Gospel, this is the power behind the parables Jesus loved to tell. Jesus chose the form of his message with his purpose in mind.
Simplicity and directness. Keeping it simple and direct for children may seem obvious, but so often the reverse happens. I don't write out the whole sermon, but I do make a point of writing down my single goal. When I am not 100 percent sure where I'm headed, I take too many detours getting there. One portable message does just fine.
The example above of the flower being torn into tiny pieces is one of the simplest, most direct children's sermons I know. I could use it to illustrate a number of Christian themes: the majesty of God as Creator, good Christian stewardship/ecology (don't destroy what you can't put back together), or the argument from design for the existence of God.
The constant temptation is to try to do too much, to complicate what begins as a simple idea. The greater the idea, the greater the temptation. A great idea should be used to make one great point.
I love children's sermons that are direct (not allegorical) and where everything said and done is directed toward one goal.
Targeting. When I discovered all children are not alike-age does make a difference-I began to target a sermon for a particular age group. Since several age groups usually gather with me, it means choosing which group of cherubic faces gets special attention on a given Sunday. I may only graze the target with the other age groups, but I at least have the benefit of consciously choosing which target I want to hit.
To do this, I had to learn the basic traits of preschool, younger elementary (primary), and older elementary (juniors) children.
Preschool children understand you literally. They don't distinguish clearly between fantasy and reality. On the other hand, they love "let's pretend" stories. Our approach must be crafted to steer a careful course between fairy tales and literal meanings that were not intended. Enjoy the fun of entering their childlike world.
For younger elementary children, going to school, making friends, enjoying creating things, struggling to be persons in their own right, and handling the tension between being safe and taking risks dominate their lives. I target my sermons to give them Christian role models and to affirm them as persons of worth.
The older elementary children are trying hard to master and control reality. They have entered the postconventional stage of childhood. Competition is uppermost in their minds. They love games. My sermons for them reveal my understanding of a God who accepts them whether or not they are "the winners."
A targeted sermon says I care enough to enter into the world of children rather than just trying to reduce an adult sermon to that amorphous level of "children."
Open-endedness. Children can think; they really can. So why beat them over the head with the obvious? Why feel compelled to tidy up all the loose ends and give them a complete package? I like to send out the children with something to work out for themselves.
Every Thanksgiving I am tempted to tell my story of Tom Gobble, the greedy turkey who eats so much that he gets eaten for Thanksgiving dinner. If I left this one open-ended, it would invite cannibalistic conclusions from literal-minded younger children. Besides, the story is so pat.
I prefer situations which beg continuing participation. Once in cutting a dollar bill into ten parts to illustrate a tithe, I opened a wider door that invited parents to take the story home with their children to discuss other ideas, like how money is spent, what is fair, or weekly allowances. Occasionally I will intentionally dismiss the children with ideas that need continuing thought.
In Bruno Bettelheim's Use of Enchantment, this noted psychiatrist points out that fairy tales are open-ended in the sense they allow listeners to rework the story in their imagination by entering into it at various points, depending on the conflicts felt at that moment. A good storyteller knows the most effective story is one where the meaning does not have to be spelled out. The story carries its message best when listeners find their own stories within the one being told.
I aim to tell the story in such a way that children experience God's love as radical reversal and surprising joy. This story form of gospel telling, in my estimation, is the most difficult form of all. And therefore the most effective.
Proclamation by participation. How true it is that we learn by doing! For children, the ratio is something like 60 percent retention of what they do, 30 percent of what they see, and 10 percent of what they hear. If this ratio is accurate, then proclamation by participation should be a primary goal.
One of my favorite children's sermons involved a gigantic chocolate chip cookie. With a few words of introduction, including a reading of Isaiah 58:6-10, I gave one of the gathered children the enormous cookie. Then I waited; that is, I trusted an open-ended process.
My words of introduction were most important. If I had said too much, it would have turned proclamation into moralism-"You should divide up the cookie." Had I not said the right words, the child would have felt confused or tested.
As it was, by resisting the temptation to be moralistic, I didn't spoil the effect of the child's decision. I was simply prepared to briefly summarize the experience, however it turned out.
An effective children's sermon is as rare as a truly great adult sermon, but children's sermons need not be a chore at best or a madcap zoo at worst. Plenty of signs warn us when we haven't cared enough to enter into the unique world of children: inappropriate or careless language, untargeted sermons, moralistic object lessons, dependency upon allegory and metaphor, humanistic anecdotes. But when we set our targets high, our striving will make us better proclaimers, not only to the children in our midst but to all the family of God.
Richard J. Coleman is teaching minister of the Community Church of Durham (UCC), Durham, New Hampshire.
80 Winter LEADERSHIP/86
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